Akhilesh pours cold water on Shivpal’s overtures for alliance

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has made it quite clear that any truck with his estranged uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L)

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has made it quite clear that any truck with his estranged uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav was not acceptable to him.

Akhilesh Yadav touching the feet of his uncle Shivpal Yadav. (Sughar Singh)

He gave the indications during the Holi get-together at Saifai on Tuesday.

Shivpal on Friday last had made overtures to Akhilesh for an ‘alliance understanding’ between the SP and PSP-L for 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

Saifai is the ancestral village of the Yadav political family of Uttar Pradesh, and it gathered like never before in past years on Holi.

The SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, his son Akhilesh, Mulayam’s cousin and SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav, and Mulayam’s brother PSP-L chief Shivpal shared the stage and greeted villagers.

While initially it looked like that a political reunion might be moment’s away when Shivpal touched Ramgopal Yadav’s feet and the latter reciprocated by his hand on Shivpal’s head.

Both Shivpal and Mulayam had blamed Ramgopal for ‘orchestrating’ the family feud that began in August 2015 and led to Akhilesh taking over the party in January 2017 and eventually Shivpal going a separate way in October 2018 by forming his political outfit.

The cheer grew louder with ‘chacha-bhatija zindabad (long live uncle-nephew)’ when Akhilesh stretched his hand and touched Shivpal’s feet.

Frowning at the sloganeering, minutes later, Akhilesh took the mike and said: “I recognise all in the crowd (who raised the slogans). In politics, directions often are different. I will not come to Holi here next year.”

Akhilesh’s words stunned the crowd into silence but at the same time sent the message loud and clear that he was not in the mood for any direct or indirect political alliance or reunion with Shivpal.

Shivpal stayed nearly half-an-hour on the stage while Mulayam and Akhilesh stayed longer. Akhilesh, in his speech, attacked the state government over various issues, including those related to farmers.

Mulayam, in his remarks, highlighted that real Holi would be when all poor people too would be able to make Holi delicacies.

All other cousins, Shivpal’s son Aditya Yadav, former Bijnor MP Dharmendra Yadav, former Mainpuri MP Tej Pratap Yadav and former Firozabad MP, Akshay Yadav, were also present at the Holi celebrations.

The pandal (marquee) where the Holi get-together took place bore Samajwadi Party name and symbol. The Yadav family for decades has been holding a Holi get-together in the ancestral village in Etawah.

Last year too, despite throwing verbal barbs at each other before and after the Holi, Shivpal and Akhilesh had met and Akhilesh had touched Shivpal’s feet. But there were no talks of politics between them.

But Shivpal’s Friday statements in the neighbouring Firozabad had set fresh speculation about the Yadav family’s Holi get-together in Saifai. Shivpal had hinted at an ‘alliance understanding’ between his party and the Samajwadi Party for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls.

Shivpal had said there was no dispute within the family. “The family is one, the parties are two,” he had told newspersons.

“There can be an understanding with the Samajwadi Party about seats for the 2022 state polls. The ‘key’ will remain our election symbol,” he had told reporters in Firozabad.

Shivpal had contested the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019 LS polls. Both he and the SP’s then sitting MP from Firozabad Akshaya Yadav had lost the election to the BJP candidate.